Archive for September, 2004

“Wisdom is always knowing what to say and never actually saying it.” Quiet in life, my mind comes alive in my writings. I’m glad I found a place like there where I can sit down and write about whatever I want to without having to worry about negative repercussions reverberating through the physical life I live every day. Perhaps it is slowly becoming clear why I try not to share my blogs with people I see in the flesh. At any rate, I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to the very essence of what makes this blog, and I’ve grown to appreciate what it does for me. I can remain quiet in the day knowing that whatever I want to say, I can hold on to, and fully explain to my blog. Instead of speaking foolish words, I have the ability to spend time to ponder over them and phrase them in the best possible way to get my point across; a luxury speech is rarely afforded. So, in appreciation and thanks for everything I have here in my blog, I’m going to try my best to write a fun and interesting entry tonight. I hope you enjoy it; I sure will!

What would you do if you were told that you wouldn’t live another ten years? I know I kicked off this blog with a loaded question, but it’s an interesting one nonetheless. If you knew your years were numbered, what would you do differently in your life? What would you change, what would you do, and why? Stop for a minute and think about what you’d do. Would you form relationships you know you’d have to break through your own death? Would you start projects you know you would never finish? Sometimes I ask myself this question. What would I do if I knew my live were to be sliced in the middle? Well, I’ll share my thoughts. I’d probably give up computers, stop wasting time on immature time wasting activities (like ‘hacking’), and I’d change my major to medicine. I’d work hard to get through college to become a doctor, and then take that knowledge to somewhere else in the world where I could help people without access to skilled doctors. Hey, that sounds familiar! The point I’m trying to make is that everyone (yes, even you) will die, and no one knows for sure when it might be. I’m pretty sure most all of my blog readers drive. Do you realize how easily it would be for a tragedy to happen on the road? At any moment, you could turn the wheel a few inches to the left and slam head-on into oncoming traffic, changing or ending the lives of you and the people your action affected. Here’s my point. Your days are numbered, yet you don’t know the number. Don’t waste time on things that are empty and unimportant. Make the most of your life and live every week like it’s your last! Then, when you look back upon your days, you’ll be happy for the choices you’ve made. ^_^

I might be going back to China! I know, can you believe it? For those of you who are new readers, about two years ago I went to China as part of an international adoption. No, I wasn’t adopted; my family adopted a little girl from China. Why China? Well, to make a long story short, there are incredible numbers of orphaned girls in China. Nope, no boys (well, almost none); just girls. Why? In China, your family name is very important. Every family wants to have a son to carry on their family name. However, because of the current social and economic status of China, the communistic government says that a family can only have one child. If the family has more than one child, that family is fined with higher taxes. Most families in China can not afford the cost of having more than one child. So, if a couple gets married and wants a boy and their first child happens to be a girl, they might be disappointed because they wanted their family name to live on. So, what a lot of people do is they abandon their baby girl and try again for a boy. I want to emphasize the word abandon here. A lot of times, they put the child into the sea to drown. Sometimes, they place the baby somewhere it will be found and run away. If a person is caught abandoning their child in China, they will be under some major fire, for such a thing is very illegal. So, Chinese girls who are abandoned are abandoned anonymously and without hope of ever knowing who their parents really are. Thus, the orphanages in China are filled with girls. Okay, back to the topic. A couple years ago my family decided to adopt and because of the situation in China they decided to adopt from China. Well, I guess it worked out pretty well; we’re going over in a few months to get another girl. My sister, adopted two years ago, who is four now, is named “Hannah”. I’ll see if I can find a picture to put by this paragraph. Her new to-be sister will be named “Leah”, and to get her my family will be traveling to China…

But here in lies the problem; we still don’t know exactly when we’ll be traveling. In fact, we probably won’t have more than two weeks notice when it’s time to fly out of the country. The only way I’d be able to go is if this happens over Christmas break. Otherwise, I simply can’t miss my college classes for two weeks; it’d kill my grades (grades I need if I even have a shot at getting into medical school). Do I want to go? A year ago I’d have expected myself to ecstatically leap at the opportunity to go back to China. However, I’m not sure what it is; I’m not overly enthusiastic about returning to the most populated country on the planet. I have much more of a desire to go somewhere in Asia by myself, after having enough time to try to work on getting a good stab at whatever language will be spoken where I go. It’s one thing to go to another country by yourself and be able to do whatever you want. It’s another thing to go everywhere with a family of six. While I’ll take the opportunity if it comes, I don’t think I’ll be too sad about missing it if it turns out to be the case. I know my plans, and I’m sure I’ll be spending my share of time in Asia in the future. For now, whatever works out will be fine with me =o)

Man, this week was rough! I had a school week jam-packed with quizzes and tests. I’m absolutely exhausted. I’m relieved that they’re finally over, and I’m thankful that I was able to stay up late enough and wake early enough every day to be able to spend time on my subjects. I knew I had a test in Calculus II coming up, and I knew I had a test in Physics coming up. I knew I had a test in Biology coming up, and I knew a test in Chemistry II was right around the corner. What I didn’t know is that they’d all be within an 18 hour window of each other. So, as the final days ticked down, any time I spend studying for one subject detracted from the time I was able to study for another. Being at school all day makes it a little difficult sometimes to get work done. I’m glad I’ve found a small group of people from each of my classes who I can work with to get things done. I just realized how funny that sounds. By a group, I mean two people. Hey, for a previously reclusive guy like me two people qualify as quite a group. Anyway, we wanted a place to study where it was quiet so we could think but also loud enough that we could all talk to each other without worrying about disturbing others. After going around to a few places, I had an idea. One of the buildings in the campus is under hiatus construction because of the last hurricane. Some of the rooms are missing ceiling tiles, and all the chairs, desks, and projectors have been removed weeks ago. The entire building is empty, and there are rooms where we can be as loud as we want. They also have huge double-length dry erase boards. We brought up some chairs and a small desk into the room and got it all set up. I (doing a little ceiling work while standing on a chair) was able to make it so I could wire-up my portable CD player to the sound system already in the room. Also, there’s a live and working internet-ready Ethernet jack in the room! So we’ve got lights, dry erase boards, chairs, desks, and music… all in a room on the second story of a building that is holding no classes! How much better could it get? We (the ‘group’) hang out there between classes and work together on Physics and Calculus homework. I go there every morning and spend a few hours by myself listening to quiet music and studying. Yesterday when the group was in the room the girl and I were doing Physics problems on the board and the guy was reading his book and watching us work all while Mozart’s “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” was playing in the background. I started laughing when I realized how much we’d look like total geeks if anyone walked in on us ^_^

My Chemistry II lab last Wednesday was crazy! The purpose of the lab was to be able to identify an unknown cation in a solution by using hierarchical trial-and-error tests to narrow down the possibilities. I’ve been working hard reading and preparing for the labs lately, so I felt pretty good about this one walking into it. I was, however, a little anxious about it because it is worth so much of our semester’s lab grade. I got there about thirty minutes early and tagged my Chemistry professor and got him to unlock the lab for me so I could start washing my test tubes, gathering materials, and preparing the lab. About fifteen minutes later he popped his head in and said “The unknowns are in that cabinet, feel free to pick one and get started!” “Awesome!”, I thought to myself. But then the professor added that there are two unknown cations in the solution, and we had to identify them both for full credit. I wanted to be able to work the lab slowly and methodically without rushing. So, I grabbed an unknown chemical (#37) and started work on it. About an hour later (with two hours left in the lab) I hit a wall. The solution registered positive for both Aluminum and Zinc, and I knew that couldn’t be right. So, with the clock ticking down, I realized there was nothing I could do but start over… so start over I did. This time, I got a little farther, but it showed positive for Aluminum initially, but wouldn’t pass the confirmary test! With fifty minutes left on the clock, and a blank answer sheet of my unknowns, I knew I would completely fail this lab if I didn’t think of something fast. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but all I could guess is that my unknown or some of the other testing chemicals I had been using was contaminated. I went to the professor and asked if I could start with a new unknown. He said it’d be all right with him, but if I did that I’d forfeit the right to try to guess at the correct cations in the previous solution. Knowing I had little chance of guessing them correctly, I agreed and grabbed unknown #10. I rushed over to my lab and, with 45 minutes left, worked frantically to wash my test tubes, start the burner and get some water boiling, and start all the way from the beginning. I got a whole new tray of chemicals to eliminate the possibility of using contaminated bottles and started work again. Twenty five minutes later, I did it! It took less than a half an hour but I figured out both cations in the solution (manganese and silver) and turned in my answer and got it right. Awesome! I walked out of lab fifteen minutes before it closed. That was a close one!

Hey Scott! It’s your birthday! Yeah, with all this schoolwork I seemed to completely forget about it. I woke up this morning and went to school and got a cell phone call from someone saying “Happy birthday!” and I was like “Oh yeah, that’s today isn’t it?” Oh yeah, also in that ‘room’ at school I talked about earlier, the girl from my group drew a picture of a birthday cake on the dry erase board. It was nice =o) Anyway, I don’t have much going on for my birthday; not that I particularly care. I’m happy enough knowing that I don’t have any big tests around the corner and can devote some time to getting homework done instead of having to study every two seconds. My family is going out of town this afternoon for my sister’s cross country meet, so I’ll have the place to myself. I don’t think I could think of a better way to spend my last teenage birthday than staying up by myself watching “Il Mare” and “Lovers Concerto”, two movies which I’ve neglected by the way. I don’t think I’ve watched “Il Mare” in almost three months! I guess school’s been getting in the way of my love life ^_- Heh, it’s pretty sad when watching subtitled DVDs qualifies as your love life, but don’t take that line as anything more than it is; purely a joke. It’s all good anyway =o)

Well, I’ve got a lot of schoolwork to go over and a girl from my math class just left me a voicemail telling me that she forgot to give me back some of my papers I let her borrow. I’ll go try to figure something out and give her a call back… I’m loaded with homework this weekend so if you’re expecting an email or chat session from me, it might have to be postponed. I’ll finish school, then live a little if I have the time ^_^ I hope you’re having a great day whoever you are, wherever you are, and whenever you read this! –Scott

Prenote: in my exhaustion, tonight’s blog is more of a rant and lacks “professionalness”. If you’re a first time reader, I suggest you scroll down and start with the blog from last Friday. If you’re single and lonely with absolutely nothing better to do with your Friday nights, feel free to read this post anyway!

I’m exhausted. Like every blog I’ve written in the last two months, I feel I should start off apologizing. I haven’t kept up my writings as I had hoped, and I’m disappointed. Unfortunately, school is starting to get fairly rough. I’m beginning to feel the waves of euphoric responsibility calling me to study by nagging at my mind. While I’d like to say that the reason I haven’t written here in a week is because of school, I’d be lying. I’ve made some pretty bad choices (in hindsight) on how to spend my time, and I’ve once again disappointed myself by neglecting my writings. It’s all right though; what’s done is done. It’s time to move on! So, with that out of the way, I’ll continue with tonight’s blog. You should stick around! I think it’ll be interesting. I’ve got a small list of things I’d like to talk about ranging from a plethora of topics from fashion to that Korean DJ I’ve become addicted to! So, if you’re a die-hard blogreader of mine wanting to know what happens, or even a first time skimmer wondering how someone could be addicted to a Korean DJ, sit back and check out what I’ve got to say! I promise; tonight, my blog will be an exceptionally good read.

Yeah, but, you never said why you are exhausted. All right, if you insist. However, partially for the sake of storytelling, partially for the sake of trying not to sound sorry for myself, and partially just for the fun and nostalgia of old times, I’m going to write this paragraph from the voice of a third person. That’s right, Scott feels somehow inadequate to write about what he thinks, so he’d rather I write about what he does. It’s a good thing I’m here for him! Yeah, in case you’re new around here, I’m S.T.P. or Scott in the third person. Sometimes Scott has things he wants to talk about but feels embarrassed or awkward to write them from his own perspective, so he uses me to write about whatever it is he’s trying to convey. In the case of tonight, he wants to write about the recent events of his past week pertaining to his college, but he doesn’t people to think he’s trying to get them to feel sorry for himself. What a moron; he always takes everything so personally. At any rate, I have to hand it to the kid. He woke up early every day this week to get to school a few hours before his first few classes. He used this time to study for his various classes. Then, after long (eight to fourteen hour) days of classes he comes home to eat and study more, only to fall asleep at some late hour and repeat the cycle all over again. The guy has guts though, he signed up for four tough classes all at the same time. He probably won’t have another semester this tough for a while. Anyway, this kid has been working like a machine. He’s done this the last few weeks though. It seems to be a pattern with him. He neglects his body (he doesn’t eat much and doesn’t sleep much) and starts to get sick by the end of the week, so he uses the weekend to try to get well again so he can start it all over. All this guy does is school and “personal enjoyment”, whatever the crap that’s supposed to mean. Okay, I have to be a little more respectful of Scott, since technically my very existence qualifies as his “personal enjoyment”. Although there is one thing that bother me; what kind of sick twisted freak gets enjoyment while writing about his own week using the voice of a third person? …but I digress. He’s been working hard and feels pretty good about the tests he took this week. He knows that if he even wants so much as a shot at getting into medical school he’ll have to learn how to work hard and long and not tire. I think the little guy’s doing it to try to test himself to see if he can do it. I guess it’d stink to wallow around your own class work for four years only to get rejected from medical school. But, hey, all he has to do is get a few Bs in important classes and he’s as good as rejected. While that might not be the true and concrete reality, he has to keep telling himself that, otherwise he loses the very (and only) incentive he has to work on his own! It’s time for a new paragraph.

Yeah, I know Scott said I’d only have one paragraph, but he has no control over me. Seriously, this kid needs to lighten up. All right, while I’m talking to you, there are a few other things I’d like to say. While I think Scott is overprotective of his words in an effort not to write anything that would offend anyone he knows personally, I’ll have to admit that I have trouble finding the words to wrap around this next topic that express the point but don’t step on any toes. Ahh, I have the perfect solution! If your name starts with a M, H, S, C, or J, you’re off the hook and this next message does not apply to you. That about covers all five people I know in person who might know Scott’s blog address and see him every once and a while. For the rest of you, you might want to rethink what you’re doing to Scott. He’s already stretched to his limit. He’s taunt and fraying. He’s about to snap! He is a string drawn to its maximum. DO NOT WALK ALL OVER HIM! I’m not saying this just for Scott, I’m saying it for you. He seems like the kind of person to snap completely and who knows what he’ll do. You see those shifty eyes that move side to side but never up and down. I’m telling you this kid freaks me out! It’s like his brain only registers his peripheral vision. Have you ever tried talking with him in person? His head always faces right at you but he so often looks really far to the left or right while he talks. Well, that’s not when he’s gazing at the shape of your eyes, which is another story in itself. Actually, Scott’s planning on writing a little something about that later, but in a real-world incident, and not a conjured-up writing. Speaking of which, can you believe this kid? Talk about lifeless and obsessive. He had nothing better to do last Friday night than to sit down and write a few thousand words on what exactly? He wrote about the shape of a small piece of fold between the nose and the eye. Give me a break! This guy is a total-

Sorry about that, STP is a great guy but he gets a little off the hook sometimes. Sorry I had to pull him off like that; he needs to learn to control himself. Ya’ hear me in there? And, oh yeah, I do have control over you, so SHUT UP! Okay, now that that’s been dealt with (I love Fridays) let’s continue onto more important matters, like my Korean DJ! All right, I confess it isn’t the top issue on the urgent list, but I figured I’d roll the blog along on a lighter note. About a year ago (rough guess) I wrote about this really cool radio station I found that streamed live from Korea. Why did I like it so much? Well, it wasn’t necessarily completely because of the music. They seem to play music from around the world. Obviously they play contemporary Korean music, but they also play Japanese, Chinese, and American songs as well; some of which are quite crapish. Hey, I just invented a word! Okay, back to what I was talking about. The cool thing about this station is that the DJs are, go figure Korean, but there’s a twist. Unlike most online (and offline) radio stations that play music only, this one also has a large amount of voice action in it. What are they talking about? I have absolutely no clue! There’s one main DJ woman and I don’t know her name, so I’ll call her “Kei”. Why Kei? Well, she happened to be speaking with my in my quasi-secret IRC channel at the time of this writing. And, yes, this is the Kei who’s been posting comments sporadically for the last few months. Although her name is Japanese, she said it’s be quite fitting for this girl who I have never seen, only heard. So, referring to Kei (the DJ), she talks a lot on the channel. My guess is that she’s reading letters and talking about them. Do I know what she’s saying? Of course I don’t! I don’t know Korean well enough to keep up with her. So, why do I listen to it? I don’t know; I guess I find it peaceful. Sometimes, even music gets old. I can’t listen to talk radio or English music or anything with words in it that I can understand while I work. I don’t know how people listen to (American) music while they do homework, study, or type on the computer. While I’m able to write decently on the computer with noise, if I hear people talking in words I can understand my brain loses concentration and my train of thought derails! So, it now suddenly becomes so clear why I like listening to instrumental music while I study (or music with lyrics in another language (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hebrew, or pretty much anything but French (ha!))). Anyway, when music gets old, I have Kei. She gives me all the perks of the relaxation I get from listening to music without the annoyance of hearing songs I’ve already heard countless times. Her voice is nice in the background and non-distracting, but dynamic enough to keep me from tiring. I listen to her talk a lot when I write a majority of my blogs. I know I’m going to get this question from someone, so I’ll go on and answer it. /sigh/ Yes, I do have quite a few hours of her voice recorded and, yes, I play it when she’s not on live radio. Okay? Happy? No? You want to hear some? It’s a good thing my blog isn’t linked to my real world (the people I see every day). Actually, I can think only of two people who have the slightest possibility of reading this article, and it’d be a shame to have to deprive all the rest of my dedicated readers the ability to hear what I hear! All right, if I know you in person, you are to maintain an oath of secrecy! This is quite embarrassing and I’m sure it counts as social suicide, but here it goes. All right, I just uploaded the mp3 and spent a while making the stupid little audio download sign. Just click the picture of the headphones to the right and you too can hear the voice of Key, my homework partner! Moving right along…

There’s this “Free Speech Door” at my college. I was walking around a few days ago and went in a new building I hadn’t gone in before. I was on the second floor (a floor usually used for professor offices) and was simply strolling down the hall. Some professors will tape a picture, sign, or note to the outside of their door, but I had never seen anything like this before. I came upon the door to an office that was completely covered with an enormous sheet of white paper. There was a cup of markers taped to the wall beside the door. The paper read “Free Speech Door” and implied that, as you walked by, you write whatever you want on the door! I don’t know what it is about this thing, but I think it’s the coolest idea in the world. Naturally, 95% of the stuff on the board is political, and quite a lot of Bush-bashing. So, what do I do? Instead of writing something stupid and moving on with my life, I go home and conjure up the “perfect thing” to put on the door. Well, a few hours (and some very dumb ideas) later I came up with one that I still get a chuckle out of. See the picture to the right? I made that in Photoshop, printed it out, took a roll of packaging tape to school with me, and taped that sucker smack dab in the center (well, left-center) of the door. Isn’t it good? I will admit though, I didn’t think of the idea completely. I was goggling for cute little phrases I could write and stumbled upon something like it and thought it was hilarious, so I decided to make it myself so it’d look nice. Well, there ya’ go. Oh yeah! This morning I went by and wrote “Condoleezza Rice for president 2008!” then below it drew an arrow to it in another color marker (like it was someone else) and wrote “Can you imagine what it would be like to watch C. Rice and H. Clinton in the presidential debates? I would PAY to see that!” I’m so dumb XD. Moving on…

Oh yes, my sister and a friend convinced (coaxed) me into going with them to the mall. I know, I know, I can hear you screaming from here. “Scott, are you CRAZY?! You don’t go to places like the mall!” And, while I completely agree, desperate times certainly call for desperate measures. I only had two pairs of pants (forbid I actually wear shorts one day) and three t-shirts left. I had to ration my clothes like they were pieces of food on a deserted island! I could wear the same thing on Monday and Thursday and no one would notice, and another thing on Tuesday and Friday, and Wednesday I’d have to mix the two. Anyway, my sister and friend jumped at the opportunity to go to the mall with me. To make a long story short, they bought clothes for me that were completely different and inconsistent than what I had been wearing the past few years. While I quite honestly couldn’t care less about what I wear or what ‘style’ I carry (one of the perks of being a socially reclusive male college student), I didn’t want to change my look a lot because of two reasons. First, people would ask about it and I hate talking to people about stupid stuff like that. Second, people would see me and think that I was insecure with myself and had the need to go out and try to buy clothes to… okay I’m blowing this way up, I know. Anyway, yeah, they bought me stuff I’ve never worn before… like… oh… I don’t know… jeans? They’re trying to turn me into a ‘prep’ because evidently I’m a ‘skater’ right now (which is news to me) and for some reason I need to not be one… or something. I don’t know. At any rate, I now have different sets of clothes that I interchange with my old ones. So, some days I’m one person, and other days I’m another. I have nothing better to talk about, can’t you tell? Enough said. No, way too much said. New paragraph.

There are so many more things I wanted to write about tonight! I wanted to talk about a live in-person conversation that happened today that was quite unique for me. It was the first time I actually talked to (or tried to) a real person about Asian double upper eyelid blepharoplasty… but I’ll save that story for another day. I’m going to try to blog sometime this weekend, but who knows what’ll happen. So, until we meet again, have a great day! –Scott

Tonight, I break out of convention! Over the years my blog readers have become accustomed to the general flow of my semiweekly writings (some more consistently than others). More or less, I’ve written in the same subdued manner as if I were speaking my thoughts quietly in a monotone whisper. Well, tonight will be different! I’ve had a long day and an even longer week, so I’m going to indulge in a little well-merited pleasure. No, I’m not going to watch “Il Mare” again; I’m talking about blogging freestyle! The advantage of this is that I can write about whatever I want to and say what’s on my mind. Yes, many of my freestyle writings are very politically incorrect and often cause a small stir among my readers. However, your input is welcomed and your comments are invited! So, sit back, grab a glass of your favorite carbonated, caffeinated, sugar-saturated beverage and enjoy what I’ve got in store for you tonight.

No! Not more talk about Asian blepharoplasty! Wait! Don’t skip this paragraph just yet. I have some new information! Also, I’m going to speak my mind and be a little more upfront than I’ve been in the past. A 23 year old Asian woman (who I do not know but has requested to remain otherwise anonymous) emailed me two days ago in reference to my article on Asian double upper eyelid blepharoplasty. The letter (which I’m not going to quote from) was relatively short but pointed to a website that contained an article posted by another Asian woman that she said would interest me. After all, I was searching for motivations and surrounding effects of the cosmetic procedure(s) that I find so fascinating. And, sure enough, this article is exactly what I was looking for when researching the procedures when I wrote my original article a few months ago. I wanted to hear from an Asian woman (or man) who had undergone eyelid surgery specifically to change their Asian features some time ago. I read a few seemingly squelched and emotionless posts written by people who had gone through it, but I somehow missed this article.

If you don’t know much about this stuff, read this paragraph. I’ll give you the quick rundown on what I’m talking about here. As you probably know Asians have eyes that have a unique shape and distinct features, as do all people of all races. Observe the picture to the right. Actually, it’s not a picture; it’s a painting. I found a website where a guy posted his collection of over twenty paintings of different peoples’ eyes. It was crazy! Okay, back to the subject. This picture shows the three areas of the eye most changed (cosmetically) by Asian women. Although Asian men also have cosmetic eyelid surgery (Jackie Chan), my writings are geared mostly for and about Asian women because more information is available about them online. Surgery to change the shape of a feature of the area surrounding the eye is called blepharoplasty. Check out where arrow number one is pointing. See how the eyelid in this girl doesn’t fold when it’s open? If you’re Caucasian (or another non-Asian race) chances are that your eyelid folds when it’s open. Run to the bathroom and look in the mirror. It’s okay; I’ll wait for you! … Welcome back! A lot of people in Asian cultures find the creasing eyelid (sometimes called a double eyelid) attractive. A small percentage of people born in most Asian countries have natural double eyelids. Since it’s a rarity, it’s naturally beautified, admired, and envied by some. Think of it as blue eyes in America. A lot of American women want to have blue eyes. Some don’t care at all. Others buy colored contacts to make their eyes look blue. Now take a glance at arrow number three. See how the eyelid rises slowly over the eye at a gentle tapering angle? Most races’ eyes rise sharply. Asian double upper eyelid blepharoplasty usually changes the angle of the inside upper curve of the eyelid to make it steeper. Last, but not least, is arrow number two. See how the skin is covering a little bit of the eye so you can’t really see the tear duct in the picture? That little part of the eye is called the epicanthic fold. Researches say that it actually serves a purpose and keeps the delicate parts of the eye more protected in incredibly cold weather. In modern culture, it’s not really an issue. A lot of Asian women choose to have this piece of skin trimmed-back to lessen the size of this fold. And that concludes my clash course on Asian eye parts =o)

In a nutshell, this article was written by a woman who had cosmetic sugary to remove her epicanthic folds. The epicanthic fold is technically a small piece of skin called the epicanthus which lies on the inside corner of the eye and often overlaps a small portion of the eye. So, what did this letter say? The person writing it seemed to be emotionally charged (or unstable) when writing, because she tends to skip around and doesn’t make statements that build upon each other. However, one line really caught my eye.

Whoa, an atrocity? While I do much prefer the look of unaltered Asian eyes, I think that if any person wants to change the way they look then the decision is completely there’s. That doesn’t mean, however, that people “can’t go wrong”. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with cosmetically altered Asian eyelids (or any other cosmetic plastic surgery procedure), I do think that a lot of problems can arise from it if it’s done for the wrong reasons. Once again, don’t get me wrong on this statement. I think that a lot of people who are eligible, willing, and wanting to undergo the surgery will be a lot better off having it because they want it and will like it. However, in the case of this woman, she wrote about how she got it hoping that it would completely change the way she looked. She married a Caucasian man and when she looked in the mirror at herself and her husband (I’m majorly paraphrasing here) she saw two sets of eyes with double eyelids and without epicanthic folds. However, her “turning point” came when she had her first child; a baby girl. She looked at her face for the first time and saw her child’s eyes; they lacked a predominant fold and had a folded epicanthus. She thought about her life and the motivations that led to her surgery. She said that she thought she thought of herself as ugly before the surgery, and she started feeling horrible when she looked at her daughter with that same mind-set. She then decided to come to terms with herself. In fact, I’ll just use her words. Although, for grammar’s sake, I’ll modify them as slightly as I can to make it flow nicely.

< ?php q1();?>…I now want to have my [original] Asian eyes again, so [my daughter] can grow up as a healthy young lady confident in her race, looks, and heritage unlike I did (by growing-up hating myself). I plead to all other Asian people: please don’t deny our race! Make our race proud, keep our features! I am ashamed to look the way I look [after the eye surgery] and I am seeking to restore my ‘Asianness’. The more we get cosmetic surgery to look less Asian, the worse we make our own self esteem. We think it makes us feel better, but all it’s doing is ensuring that future Asian descendants have even less self-esteem than we have today. I am proud to be an Asian woman!< ?php q2();?>

So, how does this have anything to do with you, Scott? This is the last paragraph on this topic for tonight, I promise. One last time, I want to do a little housecleaning and get some of the disclaimers out of the way. I am by no means racist. I think that people have all the right to do whatever they’d like to themselves as long as it isn’t destructive or have negative repercussions that spread to other people. I am not a doctor (yet) and I will openly admit that I seriously lack vast amounts of knowledge regarding blepharoplasty, so anything I know is what I’ve found by simple research. Also, I don’t know much about Asian culture, and I don’t know or claim to know what it’s like to be an Asian man or woman living in America. I’m speaking from my thoughts that are formed from observations and the words of other people. I’m looking at the subject from the outside and can only speculate what it would be like to be in the shoes of the people it directly affects. I can only share my thoughts and hope it helps someone out there! Now, with that out of the way, it leads right into the 64,000 dollar question; “Why do you keep talking about this, Scott?” I don’t know! I can only speculate that it’s one of those silly obsessions with trying to understand something I will never fully be able to understand. Will I ever know what it’s like to be Asian? No. All I can do is look at it from the outside. This one topic seems to churn in my mind and resurface every few weeks. Why is it that I’m so interested in it? I personally find the curves of natural Asian eyes one of the most attractive features any woman can have, and I’m utterly amazed that people out there are actually willing to undergo painful surgery and live for weeks with stitches in their eyelids to remove the very thing that I think makes them so beautiful.

I’ll spend the rest of tonight’s blog to talk about cosmetic rhinoplasty (nose surgery) and how it applies Asian teenagers! Heh, just kidding ^_-

Man, school’s starting to get rough! I thought a mere four classes this semester would be a breather from the previous semester’s six classes. Man, was I ever wrong! The difference is that the six classes I took were all fairly easy, but these four are really a lot of work. Biology 1 is a lot of memorizing, but I think it’s going to be my easiest class. I’d better try hard to learn as much as I can in this class though. After all, biology will be my major! (Well, microbiology actually) Physics 1 is another class that requires a lot of work, but it’s not that difficult either. The homework in this class is tedious and takes a while to finish though. Chemistry 2 is another class I’m in and it seems to be fairly manageable. The professor seems like a nice guy. For some reason, Chemistry has always been a little harder for me. I always seemed to have to work harder than my classmates to understand some of the stuff. I guess it can be partially attributed to the fact that I skipped the intro to chemistry class because I took chemistry in high school four years ago. Most of my classmates came fresh out of a class to prepare them with Chemistry knowledge whereas I was trying to regurgitate information I had forgotten years ago. Enough with excuses though. If it’s harder for me, I just have to put forth more work to make sure I do well. If I start falling behind, it’s my problem. My other class is Calculus 2. It’s not that bad, but it’s a lot of material. He gives three tests and a final. Unfortunately, this professor doesn’t give quizzes, so absolutely all incentive to study or do homework is lost until the night before the next test. Okay, it’s not that bad, but I certainly am a few days behind in my homework. I hope to use this weekend to catch up, which reminds me! Oh, no, I’d best not write about it… never mind! (Don’t you hate it when I do that?)

Time to cheat on my Calculus project? Okay, I’m not even considering it, but I did want to put a catchy title to coax people into reading this paragraph. Hey, it worked didn’t it? Anyway, my professor gave out this paper a few weeks ago and it was our first math project of the year. We had a little over a month to finish it. It’s due in about three weeks from now. It’s called “Finding the Sa1ami Curve”. To make it short, we’re trying to find a way to draw a special curve on a hokey rink where, no matter where you are on the court, you can go to that line and shoot your puck and you have the greatest probability of getting it in the goal. The project is complicated by the fact that no dimensions are given, so you have to come up with your own coordinate system and do the entire problem with no numbers, only letters. Anyway, I figured out how to do it (vaguely) and got pretty close to making it work out. As you could imagine by the time limit he gave, it’s a lot of work. Anyway, I was at work today and had a computer in front of me and I thought about the curve. I then had a devious thought and couldn’t help but succumb to my overwhelming curiosity. I googled for “sa1ami curve” and what do ya’ know? I found the website of a guy who’d worked this problem and posted the entire solution step by step explaining what he did in each step. Hmm, this is interesting. I read it and compared it to my work. It was awesome; I was totally on the right track! I just hadn’t finished the dirty work yet (solving layers of the nasty constant-ridden derivatives of inverse reciprocated trigonometric functions). My question (directed at the general public I guess) is “did I already do something wrong?” and it’s a loaded question because I’m also implying the question “so what do I do now?” I wouldn’t cheat on something like this. I’ve spent many hours over the last few days crunching numbers, picking test points, and working on this problem… what’s to stop some loser classmate of mine from typing “sa1ami curve” into google, turning it in as his answer, and getting the same grade as me? Also, another problem is that our next project (“the case of the parabol1c pool table”) is also already on google! Should I talk about the professor about it? No, I couldn’t do that; it’d raise some red flags, right? Could I email him anonymously? It’s an option. There’s just one more little twist. You know that online version of the sa1ami curve solution I found? It’s so wordy that I think they mess up in a spot. If you’re just copying parts of info here and there you’d have no idea. Quite literally you’d have to work and understand every step of the entire thing to find this little error. I’m not even 100% sure it’s an error yet, I just thin it is… but the point I’m trying to get at is that this website is just a crappy little tripod website. Maybe the professor put it up there as a decoy intending people to try to cheat and purposely planted an error in it to screw-over the people who might decide to cheat using it? Oh, so much information, so many possibilities, so many extraneous worries, so many superfluous words!

just a quick note note: I put 1’s instead of I’s in the project titles because I don’t want MY page to be googled! Oh what a disaster that would be. Not only would my classmates figure know everything about that project, they’d know everything about me! I don’t know why it is, but I feel this ongoing need to try my hardest to keep my blog readers separated from the people I meet in person. I guess I have this silly notion that I can only [safely] open-up to people who are strangers and that I know I will never meet. The one exception is a single person I have “experimented” with by telling [him/her] my web address. I’m fairly sure that [he/she] already forgot the URL and never came here in the first place, but at any rate it was a pretty big step out on a limb for me. Sorry this note got so long.

Okay, I guess I should wrap it up for tonight. I still have a large amount of calc II homework to tend to. Oh yeah! My Chemistry lab partner (the girl who’s really good at chemistry (my weak subject)) is also in my calc II class. We meet in the cafeteria sometimes before or after classes to do homework problems together. This isn’t a problem because I mind helping other people with their math if I’m stuck at school between classes. Plus, doing homework alongside someone (especially one who’s “counting on me”) gives me a good incentive to get it done! However, today she pushed (seemingly incessantly, but I’m most likely overreacting) for me to call her tomorrow (Saturday) so we could ‘meet’ somewhere (she suggested one of our houses). She then was like “So are you going to call me? You’re going to call me Saturday, right?” and I politely (awkwardly) stayed fairly quiet. I wanted to say “Hey, no, I’m not” but I couldn’t think of a good reason. Plus, I don’t want to make her mad or think I am bitter towards her because she’s really nice and we’re going to be lab partners for quite some time. However I can picture her face casting an irritated glance in my direction Monday morning saying “Why didn’t you call me Saturday!” I know what Misia would say! Hey, let’s do a quick minute of schizophrenic role playing. “Why didn’t you call me Saturday?” “What do you mean?” “You said you’d call me on Saturday” “No, I didn’t say that; YOU said that. Stop trying to manipulate me, realize that I word best alone and only do it at school because I have little else to do while I’m there. While I greatly admire and appreciate everything you do to help me and although I’m more than happy to help you between classes, I’m absolutely not going to meet over a weekend with a classmate just to do homework!” Wow, that was fun. Yeah, Misia would have said that, but oh yeah, SHE’S FREAKING DEAD! So, it’ll probably go more like “Scott you didn-” “Yeah, I know, I’m so sorry, I feel really bad, I really tried to- but I just- it really didn’t work out”. Hmm, I feel my thoughts drifting and my words are slowly falling apart, so I should hurry up and conclude tonight’s freestyle blog before my words start floating away into complete nonsense. I doubt my lab partner knows or will find out my website, but I figure I should say something to her just in case. If you are the girl who I happened to have poked fun at in the preceding lines, realize that I didn’t mean anything bad to you, and I have personal issues that dictate when and where I like getting my homework done. I am best early in the morning and by myself. While I’m very appreciative of everything you do for me, I have absolutely no reason or desire to slow my progress down by meeting and doing them together some point over this weekend. I will, however, be more than willing to answer any questions you might have while we’re waiting between our classes. All right, hopefully that covered the grounds. Tonight I may have stepped on a few toes and if you were offended, complimented, obliged, obliterated, or abducted after reading any section of tonight’s blog, feel free to comment or email me about it. Remember, feel free to say anything you’d like in my comments section as long as you respect the other people (sometimes children) who may be reading what you write. If you have something that you feel is really important, send it to me in a personal email and I will thoroughly read it and consider what you have to say. Oh yeah, there’s a hurricane coming this way again. It stinks too. Oh well, it’ll work out fine I think. Stay safe, be cool, and have an awesome day! –Scott

Yes, mother nature wasn’t finished when she dragged hurricane Charley over central Florida. Now, only three weeks later, hurricane Francis rears its ugly head in the same direction. This storm is headed right for Orlando, so I’ll have to try to stay safe and be prepared for anything. I’m sure that the power will go out after this storm and most likely not get back on for a few days. I’ll try my best to see what can be done with a generator, but if the cable lines are out (as they were for a few days last time) the internet might be hard. All right, I have some other things to do, so I’ll go on and head off. Stay safe!

Oh yeah! I almost forgot. Did I tell you I got a really cool free 19” LCD flat-panel monitor? Well last night I did a little surgery to it. I was able to separate the screen from the stand and mount it vertically instead of horizontally. Then, with thanks to a special video card, I was able to twist my display image by 90º so I can use it like a normal monitor. Why would anyone want this? It’s awesome! Beside saving desk space (narrower) you can see a lot more vertical information at once. While I blog in word, I can see the entire page in a single window without scrolling down. Browsing web pages is awesome! I almost never have to scroll down, I see so much! Okay, it’s a little geeky, but I don’t care. Okay, I really do need to go now. Later!!! –Scott

Over the years that span my days as a blog writer, I’ve spoken about a plethora of subjects and shared my thoughts and personal feelings about so many topics. While a majority of the people who read my blog happened to stumble upon it, I am still amazed by the wonderful emails I get from these complete strangers. The strangers that contact me on a positive note to thank or compliment me on what I do in my blog most likely have no idea how much their simple efforts and emails mean to me. While many people stumble upon my website and leave it without returning, a handful of random people who happened to come across my blog liked it so much that they made it part of their daily routine to read my words. They have grown with me and watched my life change over the years, as I have grown and been changed by them. To all of the people who have sent me promising emails of motivation, I give you my gratitude. I thank you for your effort, your time, and your heart. So, from me to the collective group of strangers that impacts my life so strongly from time to time, I thank you!

Whoa, what was all that about? Today I got one of the nicest emails I ever received from a stranger of my blog. It made me realize that I never actually stopped to earnestly and publicly thank the random strangers who write me uplifting words. While I am glad I opened tonight’s blog entry with a note of appreciation for certain peoples actions, I feel sorry that not all of the people who have written these emails to me in the past will be able to read it. Whether they have moved on in life, stopped reading my website, or perhaps even died (although I only know of one), they will miss my letter of thanks. So, I’m sure you’re dying to know what was in the email I got today. However, just because of the way it was written, I have decided not to post it in its entirety. I’ll lightly describe it though, only to move on with the rest of my blog. The email, although unsigned and left anonymous, came from a girl. She referred to herself as “her” and she seemed to be in her mid twenties (judging by the fact that she was in medical school). She happened to find my site while searching for something on Google. She said she “read the page where I talked about what I think about women” (do you think you could get any more vague?) and then decided to check out some of my other writings. She didn’t say what was going on in her life (like most people who send ‘nice’ emails to me do (not that there’s anything wrong with that)). She gave me advice on keeping focus through school and all in all sent me one of the nicest and uplifting emails I’ve ever received. She left it anonymous, so I don’t know who it is, but I have a feeling she’s reading this now. So, to you, whoever you may be; I thank you especially =o)

No more college? Yes, it’s true! It’s not permanent though. Hurricane Francis appears to be heading straight for central Florida. Schools and colleges in this region have paused classes until almost a week from today. While this time will be greatly appreciated by some people, I don’t think it’s fair. I worked my tail off the last few days, staying up late, waking up early, and spending (most of) my wake minutes doing school. I was trying to get ahead to be able to turn in projects early so I could devote my time to studying for quizzes and tests to get the highest maximum scores. While (some) other classmates have been procrastinating projects and planning to study after their projects are completed, I’ve been working hard to stay one step ahead of a lot of the people I’m competing with in my classes. However, apparently, it was all in vain. This week off of school with give everyone the opportunity to catch up to where I have worked to be with little effort. Oh well, I guess there’s not much for me to do but to try to catch up myself wherever I can and maybe be able to get ahead. I know one thing’s for sure. This hurricane is headed right for me and I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’ll knock out the power to my house for at least five days. So, while I have time, power, internet, and the ability to, I think I’ll write a nice lengthy blog tonight. I have so many things to talk about! I’d best get started.

Comments about paroxetine hydrochloride (Paxil) showed up yesterday on one of the comments pages. An anonymous person told me the name of the drug and said that it helps with social anxiety. The person concluded by saying “I bet you 100% that you’ll look into it!” Well, that person was right. The name “Paxil” rang a bell, but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it before. I did a little Googling and found that Paxil is really paroxetine hydrochloride. Well, that’s the active ingredient anyway. I then remembered about an article I read in Discover Magazine about the unknown affects of new drugs on the developing human mind. It was about the time that Prozac became popular, so there were lots of articles written about drugs of this sort. The interesting thing that I remembered reading about paroxetine hydrochloride is that it’s supposed to be a good way to treat lots of mental conditions. However, the flip side to that is there were complaints of “incidents” in minors who took the medicine. Although paroxetine hydrochloride is often administered to people to treat MDD (major depressive disorder), it had a reverse affect on some children and adolescents causing them to have extreme suicidal thoughts and tendencies. A few years ago I talked with a friend of mine (who was quite a bit younger than I was at the time) who was slipping through the cracks of school and had a very unstable family and started getting in trouble a lot. He was taken to a school counselor to be ‘evaluated’ and she said he should go to the doctor. The doctor then prescribed this drug for him (I think it was paroxetine hydrochloride, I’m not 100% sure, which really stinks because I’m basing this whole paragraph on the assumption that I’m remembering it’s the same drug). His mom made him sit in a chair so she could watch him swallow the medicine; unconvinced he’d take it if he had the chance not to. I’m bringing up this topic because it’s one of those issues I never got out of my system. I feel really sorry for this kid. Not because of his “depression” or whatever it is, but what his family, school, and doctor is doing to treat it. While throwing some prescriptions on top of a problem might cover it up, wouldn’t one think it could be much more beneficial to actually treat the problem instead of the symptoms if at all possible? The kid’s doing poorly in school became his parents keep making him stay home from school because they think they’re helping him “get away from it all”. He resents his parents for doing it, but they’re convinced it’s the right thing nonetheless. So, he’s failing school, getting in trouble, and having wars with his parents. Who wouldn’t be depressed? Let the kid stay in school; give him the support he needs to make good grades. Allow him to do what he wants as long as it’s constructive for himself and other people, and be more controlling over things that are important and lighten-up on things that you don’t need to be in control of. I mean, watching him swallow his antidepressant medication? Come on, this guy is not a six year old… and it’s medication to treat some problem that they’re the number one factor for causing! Like I said, he’s not six, and I think his parents need to stop treating him like he is. As children age and are under the control and responsibility of their parents, it’s so important for them to be able to judge how to react to situations. If done correctly, rules can be replaced by responsibility. If broken, they get put back into place. If left unbroken, they’re built upon. If you can’t trust your teen-age son to swallow a pill by himself, what do you think you’re telling him? Okay, this is an issue I heard about three years ago and unfortunately I lost communication with the guy I just described, so I never heard what happened. I hope it turned out well, but I apologize for writing about it so much. I guess it was still bothering me ^_^. Okay, back to what I was saying.

As I was reading some of the information about this drug I found a button that linked specifically to social anxiety information relating to this drug. Since the person who posted the comment mentioned it, I clicked it. I started glancing over it and was somewhat interested with what I found. The description of the problem mentioned having panic attacks when around people and other extreme things that didn’t really apply to me. However, even though the ‘problem’ didn’t relate to me, I read the symptoms and was startled by how much they overlap some of my own qualities. The symptoms were all listed with the pretext of “When in a group of people you don’t know you may experience” and went on to list things like a racing heartbeat, dry mouth, impaired speech (slow words or words that come out in the wrong order), excessive perspiration, trembling hands (something that’s very noticeable in me), and a feeling of needing to locate escape just for the peace of mind. As these silly little articles are designed to do, it sucked me into realizing that I had all the symptoms. So, for kicks we’ll say that I have a mild case of social anxiety disorder. From my point of view, I just don’t like being in groups of new people my age. If they’re older, fine. If it’s one on one, fine. If it’s a huge audience, there’s no problem! Stages and public speaking are no problem for me. It’s just those stupid small groups of people my own age that really make me uncomfortable. It’s not enough to bother me or hinder anything noticeable, but it certainly does make me want to avoid these groups whenever I can. I don’t go to parties, dances, clubs, or school events whenever I can avoid it. It’s not that I’m afraid of anything; it’s just that I really, really don’t like being there. If I’m there, no problem! I’m not going to spaz out or go crazy or something like that. (Misia doesn’t count ^_-) I just try to avoid it whenever possible. When people invite me to go to movies (or some other “out”) with their friends and stuff like that, I always (quite literally) deny it whenever possible. It’s just… it’s something I really, really dislike, and I try to stay away from it.

So what is life like on the outside, anyway? Pretending still that I may have some sort of mild social anxiety disorder, is it a bad thing? Not spending excessive amount of time wasting time with ‘friends’ means that most of my hours I am either staying at school working or staying at home studying (or blog writing, hehe). In all cases, I’m doing something constructive. Sometimes people comment about how much school work I do in one sitting, or how many hours I spend in the library preparing for a test. Why do I spend so much time to make sure I get good grades? “I don’t have anything else to do!” While it sounds pathetic, it’s one of my biggest motivations for getting schoolwork done. Now are you starting to see the reasons why I stopped TV, gave away sixteen computers, and try to shut myself out from anything that can distract me? So, back to my original statement, if I do have a social anxiety disorder and it’s causing me to become a solitary worker and study harder and try to get better grades so I’ll get into and do well in medical school, I’m starting to see this as a benefit! I went through all of my teenage years (and I’m in my last one!) not doing things with groups of people. I see no reason to take medicine to change the way I think to allow me to do relatively unimportant things with groups of people that would take time away from what I do that actually is important in my life. Then again, I guess by not being exposed to “the outside world” I can’t tell what I’m missing. So, what’s it like at a party? The thought sounds repulsive, but maybe I’m wrong and someone can help me out and enlighten me. What’re you waiting for? Comment your thoughts!

Counterstrike 2D! Yes, it’s true! The #1 multiplayer online first person shooter 3d game just lost a dimension. In my daily Googling I happened to stumble upon Counterstrike 2D quite by accident. The website is cs2d.com. What is it? It’s exactly what it sounds like! It’s counterstrike, with most of the same maps and weapons and rules, but in two dimensions! The screenshots don’t do it justice, you have to play it. The game is free and about six megabytes to download (a few seconds on a high-speed connection). It requires winrar to decompress the file though. You can pick that up at rarlabs.com. Anyway, this game is really, really, really, really cool. Why do I think it’s so cool? It’s the way it was coded. It’s a classic game placed in two dimensions with three dimensional effects (really good shadows, ghosting, sprites, etc.) From a coder’s standpoint, this little game is cool as heck. It has single player play and also has an internet play option. There are usually servers with people playing every day. Also, the system requirements make this game perfect for even a crappy computer like mine. If you’re bored and have nothing better to do (like me now that school’s canceled for a week) you should check it out. It’s pretty fun. I will warn you though; it’s very addictive for the first thirty minutes. After that, it begins to get old, but after a few hours away from it you’ll find yourself wanting to try it again. “But don’t take my word for it!” Get it? It’s a Reading Rainbow joke. Moving right along…

A dude in my Calc II class wore a NERV shirt the other day. It triggered this flood of memories. Also, I watch this guy every day. I watch him come in and sit down. What’s so unique about this one early twenties tall, thin man with long hair and dark sunglasses even inside? He’s how I envision myself in a few years having gone the engineering route. Yes sir-ee. Geekdom manifests itself in this man, but I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. Computer geeks are their own subculture of humans that are thought of separately by each other than other people (if that makes any sense at all). Anyway, this guy wears the stereotypical computer geek shirts. I think computer geeks lack creativity in self expression, so the only way they can display their geekness is via strange t-shirts. The irony in that being that only other geeks can interpret and understand the geekyness of the computer lingo-riddled sayings on these articles of clothing. Yes, I have about 7 shirts from ThinkGeek.com. Heck, I’ll list their quotes. It’ll be a good example of what I used to be, and a great way to gain some search results! I’m so bad. Well I have the “I read your email” shirt, the “Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script” shirt, the “Kung Foo” shirt (with Chinese writing on the back saying “Skillful Coder”), I have the one with the structural diagram of a caffeine molecule, I have the one that says “There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those that don’t”, and I even have the “B4K4” mega Tokyo shirt. If you actually got the joke or understood the point of more than three of the terms I just mentioned, congratulations; you’re a geek. Oh yeah! I almost forgot to explain what NERV is. It’s an evil corporation that destroys the universe in 2015. Now you know.

Oh man, I’m absolutely exhausted. I was in a stupid three hour lab yesterday standing up at a desk (no chairs) doing paper work. It was so dumb. Luckily I had started it the morning before the lab so I was able to finish it early and take off almost an hour early, which helped a little. But, man, I’m just… about to fall asleep every time I blink. I’d better hurry up and post this while I’m still awake! I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post again for a while. Hurricane Francis makes it hard, but I’ll see what I can do. I even hear we might have a generator this time around. That’ll be nice. I’m outta here. Have a good one! –Scott